Big Brother 13 kicked off Thursday night with the revelation of which former houseguests would be joining the eight first-time players in a quest for the $500,000 prize. As expected, the six returnees were all pairs inside the game, and are still that way outside the house. The six are:

Loud and giggly Rachel Reilly, who dominated the first half of last season, along with her mostly ineffective fiancé Brendon Villegas;

Jordan Lloyd, the deceptively dumb winner of Big Brother 11, along with her mostly likeable boyfriend Jeff Schroeder;

And Dick Donato, the “rock ‘n roll dad” who bullied his way to a win in Big Brother 8, with his runner-up and daughter (probably in that order) Daniele, who is no longer playing as a blonde. Dick is claiming the two haven’t spoken in three years, but he said something similar in their first go-round and it was all a lie. The last four years haven’t been kind to Dick, who has gotten paunchy and looks more than ever like Mickey Rourke’s younger but even more dissolute brother.

The premiere episode also revealed some rule changes to the game, and these will have the effect of changing strategy quite a bit. The eight new houseguests were told to choose teammates;  they will be paired with those players in the game and will share their fates. If one member of a pair becomes the Head of Household, then his or her teammate will be safe also. But if one half of a pair is put up for eviction, than the other half will join them on the block and be forced to campaign against their colleague. Also, anyone who is up for eviction in the first four weeks and is saved will lose their partner, but will automatically become safe until the top ten (presumably, this is when all the pairs will be dissolved). These rule changes will make it awfully hard for an alliance of four to remain secret throughout the game, as was the case last season.

Unfortunately, Rachel won the first Head of Household competition, and she only knows one way to play: get rid of the other young women in the house, who she regards as competition for Brendon. Big Brother would probably prefer that the cute girls stick around longer, but their plans are sort of noted for going awry.

Tags: big brother, big brother 13